Let's not start complaining about phantom "misleading" titles: read what it is about and get an idea, I don't know how to summarize this material in any other way. Yes, he is indeed capable of making “cognitive” decisions on his own.
The US Air Force and Penn State University have collaborated to develop this intelligent tissue capable of “thinking” and “feeling”. The team published the results of this research in Nature (I link them to you here).
How does material capable of 'thinking for itself' work?
After experiencing bodily tension, this material is literally able to understand what is happening. And it doesn't stop there: it instinctively responds to the activity and processes it, a bit like the human brain behaves.
At the core of everything is a soft polymer, capable of “receiving digital strings of information” and consequently performing appropriate reactions. Its integrated circuits, which work on silicon semiconductors, give the object the ability to "capture" external stress and transform it into electrical information which it then processes.
To demonstrate the results, the research team had the smart fabric perform some advanced arithmetic operations (don't ask me how, at least take a look at the video).
A research that comes from afar and looks even further
The study by the US Air Force and Penn State University resumes previous research conducted as far back as 1938 by Claude Shannon, mathematician and electrical engineer who first incorporated the embryo of a tissue capable of advanced mechanical information processing.
Today, essentially, we discover that with the right "addition" of material and software any material can potentially be able to 'think' on its own.
The team intends use this for search and rescue systems, being able to emit signals autonomously and even detect infections in the air when combined with other bio-hybrid matter.
